The (not so) secrets of cheese and butter making have been given to me today. It’s actually quite simple really, butter more-so than cheese. I’m sure Alastair will be glad to hear that butter making technology no longer requires 4 hours to make a pat of butter. Instead all that is basically necessary is a stand mixer and some 3 day old cream and beat it like crazy for about 30 minutes. After that, ta-da butter is ready. The cheese process is a little more involved but not terribly so. As Biddy said not much has changed in cheese making in the last several centuries so it isn’t that difficult. None the less it was fun to watch the whole process happen. I also meant to link Cheese & Trains in the last post but it completely slipped my mind so i’ve corrected that error.
Alex stopped by on his way through to Martinborough so he could get a look at the trains and taste some of the cheese. We went over to the Mt. Bruce wildlife reserve which is 3k from where I am currently staying. We got to see some kiwis, saw them feed some extremely large eels, and saw them feed some kaka birds. We also got in a hike up to the the top of Mt. Bruce but it wasn’t so nice as it rained. Hopefully tomorrow is better weather as I got a chance to stat at The Hut which is right next to Mt. Bruce so if I’m lucky I’ll get to hear the sounds of the kiwi at night (do they make sounds?) Should be a neat place to spend the night, sorta like camping without the difficult bits.
I am planning on leaving this Saturday for Martinborough where Alex has found his next wwoofing job on a winery there (a good excuse for me to visit another winery in New Zealand if I ever heard one.) After that I’m gonna shoot over to Wellington and finally make it across the strait to the south island, yippie. I broke out the maps to the south island last night and could hardly go to sleep, fairly strange but I can hardly wait to get to the south island and start cycling in earnest once again. Although I must say that the distance from Picton to Christchurch (where I am planning on staying for at least a few weeks is only about 400km so that basically means i’ll just be on the bike for a little less than a week. It’ll suffice, for now.